


'I wasn't expecting that'

by Forbiddenmichael



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dirty Thoughts, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mild Smut, Minor minor minor homophobia, Misunderstandings, Sexual Tension, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, a tiny bit of angst, ambiguous!calum, bisexual!ashton, ha thats a tag omg, like idek how to tag this but like, like very mild lol, pansexual!ashton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-01 05:04:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5193290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forbiddenmichael/pseuds/Forbiddenmichael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On his sixteenth birthday, Ashton gets his soul mate tattoo, and it's everything he hoped for. Even is his soul mate does sound a little bit sarcastic and snarky.<br/>A few months later, on the other side of Australia, Calum woke up on his sixteenth birthday with his soul mate tattoo. And needless to say, it's everything he hoped it wasn't.<br/>'What colour even are your eyes?'<br/>'Wait, you’re a boy? You’re meant to be a girl.’ </p><p>or when Calum and Ashton have waited for there soul mate tattoos for so long and what they get isn't what either of them expected. they aren't what each other expected either...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tattoos

**Author's Note:**

> so my friend has been begging me for quite some time to write a fic with just the boys in it and I finally have. meaning shout out to you for this shit storm !!? 
> 
> this went on for longer than I thought and was meant to be a one shot but i got to carried away with the story line and now have loads of ideas !! This will probably be about 3 chapters long... Well enjoy this intro type beginning.
> 
> Also fic title from 'I wasn't expecting that' by Jamie Lawson. Like the song just fit, the lyrics have no correlation to what's gonna be in the fic...

The idea of soul mates had always been something foreign and weird when Ashton was a child. Not bad, never bad, but just something that has an entirely new and different concept. They were something that your parents told you they ‘would tell you about when you were older’, and something that seemed to heard in the whisperings of many pre-adolescent children under park benches, and by the white hopscotch marked floor where all the girls at Ashton’s school ‘hung out’ when he was a mere Year 6.  
Uttered stories of what soul mates actually were flittered through the minds of the many little happy-go-lucky children at junior schools all round, but many did not in fact consist of moments of blank inked skin tracing another’s.  
When Ashton was eleven, wonderful stories of soul mates being superheroes that flew dragons to take you away from your evil parents, who refused to buy you sweets, were high on the list of highly truthful, factual, definitions. Top secret imaginary friends were also top of the list of explanations for the elusive soul mate. 

Ashton sometimes heard the older girls of the neighbouring secondary school talking dreamily when he walked home in the summer- it was still light out then, so the walk home wasn’t plagued with the worries of men wearing black clothing lurking in the shadows- and they had a wistful air to their voices. Giggling and teasing and dreaming about soul mates, and sometimes with mentions of something called a Tattoo.  
At the time Ashton didn’t know what a ‘Tattoo’ was, so he only presumed that is was some sort of super cool weapon that your soul mate gave you to fight of evil demons, or something. He often spent his short walk home from school thinking up loads of fanatical ideas for what these all powerful super human weapons could do. Is that what ‘Tattoos’ were? 

He asked his mum one day what it was, but the word didn’t roll easily off his tongue, sounding foreign in his mouth as he tried to replicate the way the girls from the front gates had pronounced it. His mum only hushed him, telling him not to worry about ‘those silly things’, before ruffling his unruly honey coloured curls. There had been a glint in her eye as she replied, something Ashton would later see as a motherly form of longing. Longing for Ashton’s simple innocence to be preserved, for him to be the happy bubbly little boy, with the deep hazel-y green eyes, dimples, a blinding smile, and arms always outstretched for a hug. For him to remain a child for just a little longer. It was the hope that he could be protected from every patch of dark foreboding rain that would dampen the spirits of the sunny boy as he powered further and further into life.

* * * 

When Ashton finished Primary school, he felt brave again. After working his way single-handedly – well he had his imaginary friends, but they weren’t like the really close friends he had envied the people in his class having- up the pecking order to the top of the school, he felt confident. Self-assured as a very mature eleven (and a half, thank you!) year old, that his mum surely had to agree to tell him what a soul mate was. So over a dinner of spaghetti, which his mum was trying to tactfully not spill all down herself as she manhandled Harry- Ashton’s younger brother- into a seat at the table, whist trying to reason with Lauren-Ashton’s younger sister- as to why she could not simply go over to a party at a friend’s house, without Anne-Marie calling the girl’s mother first, Ashton piped up. 

“Excuse me, Mum” Ashton interjected into the mild mayhem, he had practiced his speech in his head. Hoping to display the utmost show of complete maturity. He had even chosen to not wear his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle slippers in hopes that his mum saw how grown up he was. 

“Just a second, Ash, honey” came the huffed reply. A quick curt ‘No.’ was directed in the direction of Lauren as the young girl began to open her mouth to argue again, at which she huffed and focused solely on the pasta on her plate. Harry also seemed to remember how to actually sit in a chair, to which Ashton’s mum, gave a small sigh of relief and sat down herself. With a flitting look at the youngest to make sure he wasn’t trying to wiggle out of his chair again, or about to throw his food, Anne focused her attention back of Ashton. He tried not to let his impatience show on his face, that would be immature he told himself. 

“So,” Ashton began, keeping the excited tone out of his voice. He was a mature, civilised, practically twelve year old and they did not get giddy over the thought of the ‘Secret of the Soul mate’ being shared. “As I’m going to be going to big boy sch- secondary school now, I think it’s about time that you tell me what a soul mate is.” After his little speech, even with the slight hiccup of calling secondary school, ‘big boy school’ like his mum had always done, he was quite proud of himself. And he was quite proud of the ‘I think it’s about time…’ line as that was something he had heard one of the older girls shouting at a boy before she ripped the sleeve of his shirt up to reveal what looked, to Ashton, like sharpie written on his arm. 

Unlike what he was expecting, his mum only smiled at him. It was a small smile, one that Ashton would learn was his mum realising something was ending and something new was about to begin. The glint in her eyes from when Ashton had asked what a ‘Tattoo’ was was back, but it was also mixed with a dampness in her eyes. Ashton just assumed that it meant his mum was happy that he was finally being all grown up. She nodded, and said, “Sure Ashy” before going back to her dinner. 

Ashton frowned slightly. He wanted to know now. He wanted to put all of the rumours to rest and start the wonderful adventures him and his soul mate were bound to have already. But he pushed his impatience to the back of his mind, and focused on the fact that his mum had agreed to tell him, and that was enough for now. 

* * * 

Later that night Ashton didn’t sleep. He stayed awake sorting through all of the winding and tumbling thoughts in his head. He sifted through what was real about soul mates, and what wasn’t. Replaced what he believed to be truth with the real facts his mum had told him whilst he was cuddled up on the sofa with a glass of hot chocolate (his mum had put extra marshmallows on the top and he tried not to giggle when the gloopy sugary mess got stuck to his nose). His mum had told him so much. Starting of slowly to ease him into the idea of it all, before she unloaded a torrent of information as if she was waiting to tell Ashton all these years. His eyes widened as she continued to speak, a smile spreading across her face as Ashton’s eyes twinkled with excitement. 

He thought of how his mum had explain what a Tattoo was. She described it simply. A tattoo, she said was a way some people choose to mark their skin. The way Ashton sometimes did with a permanent marker when he got bored in class. They could be anything you wanted and any colour you wanted, but these marks on your skin were permanent. Once you got a tattoo you couldn’t get it taken away. It was there forever. Ashton thought it would have to be something pretty special to want to have it on your skin forever.  
And then she explained soul mate tattoos. Ignoring the disappointed look in Ashton’s eyes as she continued to speak, she told him all about the secret workings of them. 

On your sixteenth birthday, -“Sixteen!?” Ashton wailed. “Yes, Honey, sixteen.” “But that’s agesss away” whined the 12 year old- you will get a very, very special tattoo. This tattoo will lead you to a very special person, his mum had explained. Somewhere on your body, on the night of you sixteenth birthday, you would gain words written in black cursive writing. And these words would be the first words that your soul mate speaks to you. By this point Ashton was jumping around on the sofa with excitement. Anne had tried to quieten him with a slight warning. 

“Ash, Honey. Just because you get your soul mate tattoo when your sixteen, it doesn’t mean that’s when you’ll meet her.” Her voice was slightly sad when she spoke. 

“Oh” came Ashton’s small reply. “Wait, her? Like as in a girlfriend?” his tone was disgusted. 

Anne laugh, “Yes Ashy, like a girlfriend, well that’s if you want her to be.” 

“That’s gross” Ashton had replied. 

He tried to push the totally not immature thought of getting to have an awesome soul mate- even if they weren’t a superhero- but that person being a gross and annoying girl to the back of his mind. So Ashton spent the night wondering what his soul male tattoo would say. Would it be something nice? Like maybe a compliment or something- but then again that seemed a bit weird to compliment someone the first time you see them, especially if it was from a girl. Or something mean, like ‘watch where you going, twit’. Lots of the boys in his class told Ashton that, he didn’t call them a twit back as that was a bad word and his mum told him so. He hoped it was good, and he went to bed with the hopes that he had a really nice soul mate, with long brown hair, nice skin, and pretty eyes. 

* * * 

By the time Ashton was fifteen, he had had enough of worrying about what his soul mate tattoo would say. It was old news now. Something to ideally dream about if you were bored, but otherwise forget about until the time was right. It turned out many of the children Ashton had went to school with had been told what soul mates were over the holidays as well, so secondary school also bought them a new sense of superiority over the ones yet to be told.

But by this age, Ashton had past the stage of wonder. Now he was generally bored of the whole idea. Bored of thinking wouldn’t it be cool if his soul mate tattoo wrapped around his wrist like a bracelet, or if it was framed perfectly on his collar bones. And he was even bored of the stories of some of the unfortunate words some had tattooed to them for the rest of their lives.

Things like ‘Get your hands off me’, ‘Watch where you going moron!’, and ‘No, I am not single’, had once made him laugh. The one rumour that one of the Year Elevens had, “One skinny macchiato with semi skimmed milk and extra cream and caramel sauce, please!” tattooed to their forearm had even bought tears to his and his friend Alex’s eyes. Of course everyone hoped for an introduction, a simple ‘Hi, I’m …’ with a name. Those were the best, when people were lucky enough to get the names of their soul mates, as well as their tattoos. Ashton secretly hoped that was the case for him. Unless they girl had a really common name or something. 

* * * 

On his first day as a sixteen year old, Ashton knew that there was something different about his soul mate. 

Just as he had secretly hoped as a twelve year old, his tattoo was on the inside of his left wrist, circling it like a bracelet. Wrapping around the pale skin there, and contrasting beautifully. It didn’t sting to touch or anything, it was just there. The tattoo itself was everything he had hoped for. Small, but not to girly, cute – if a tattoo could be described as cute- but not to feminine. 

It was the words that stuck him the most. They were so upfront that it almost sounded a little rude. 

‘What colour even are your eyes?’

It stung a bit. Ashton didn’t have anything against his eyes. They were a sort of green, browny mixture. Not ugly, but nothing to write home about. They sat under messy goldenly brown eyebrows, and were framed by long eyelashes. Okay so his soul mate was a bit odd, but that was okay. Maybe she was asking in a good way? Ashton hoped anyway. 

* * * 

A few months later, on the other side of Australia, Calum woke up on his sixteenth birthday with a sinking feeling in his gut. His soul mate tattoo was there, he knew it was. He could feel the ever so undetectable tightness of his skin just below his right collar bone.  
When he dragged himself from his bed, dark chocolate eyes still groggy from sleep, hair mussed and fluffed from lying on it, and dragged himself to the mirror to look at it, he had to blink twice to see it right. At first he thought it was just his sleep bleary mind playing tricks on him. That his barley conscious mind had decided to play some deadly game called 'hey let's give Cal a death wish for his sixteenth!'. But as he rubbed vigorously at his eyes to rid them of sleep, the text on his skin didn’t change. 

‘Wait, you’re a boy? You’re meant to be a girl.’ 

The blood drained from Calum's face and his heart plummeted to his toes.


	2. Movies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What colour even are your eyes?” the boy asked almost reverently. He sounded to be in complete awe of the simple pigment of Ashton’s irises. And Ashton’s eyes widened at the words that had tumbled from his lips.
> 
> His mind was spinning. Images of his black laden wrist the first time he saw it, swimming to the front of his mind. He sucked in a deep breath of his own. The mark on his wrist felt like it was burning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so like, im really happy with the way this turned out. I basically wrote all of this last night and had to edit it now. anyway hope you like the way this went. ENJOY!!

Somewhere between the time that Ashton turned 17 and 18, he realised that maybe he didn’t just like girls. And that was that. He liked guys and girls. There was no dramatic ‘coming out of the closet’ or an epiphany of ‘Oh that’s why I feel and act the way I do’, it just allowed him to be free in his own mind. It was a label simply. A word he could put to his name that didn’t change anything about him. Sure we was attracted to girls and boys, but when had Ashton let something as simple as his sexuality change his whole persona? It didn’t affect how his mind worked, how he viewed the world and he hoped that it didn’t affect how people viewed him- although it probably did. His eyes were just as open to the world as they had been before his self-admission, and his eventual admission to his mum. There was no spin that he looked at the world with now that he was able to label himself as ‘Ashton Irwin, Bisexual’. He was still the same boy with honey curls, eyes of a dubious green and sometimes brown and a beaming smile that you could almost count on to brighten your day. 

The stormy clouds that his mum had worried would dampen his spirits didn’t come when Ashton ‘came out’. But to say that Ashton ‘came out’, implied that there had been some huge build up. Greif eating up inside of him as he fought inner demons that were surging to get out, and that as he told his mum a weight lifted of his shoulders and the world became clearer and happier was what seemed to be expected, when he told his story to those willing to listen. (Not that he told many people because his sexuality didn’t seam of much relevance to Ashton. It wasn’t the defining feature about himself.) In reality, nothing changed. His mind-set just didn’t. Nothing changed at all. He had always been bisexual, it’s not something you develop when you mature, so why now, by suddenly voicing that he was into both genders should it result in a change of personality. 

Ashton had never understood those who, had never faced any prejudices when ‘coming out’, but had completely changed for the worst. Surely just adding another descriptive word to the list that could be applied to yourself shouldn’t irradiate some of the words already used to describe you. That’s what Ashton thought anyway. 

So he let the fact be that he liked the way slight stubble scraped across his own jawline made his skin tingle as much as the feeling of long hair falling across and tickling his face. He let the fact be that he appreciated bruises on his own skin from hands stronger than his own as much as leaving marks on delicate skin himself. He let the fact be that he appreciated being held in calloused hands or holding someone with calloused hands as much as he appreciated holding someone will fair dainty hands. He let the fact be that sometimes he wanted the soft press of delicate, lip gloss covered lips, or the harsh press of matte lipstick covered ones over his torso and other times he wanted harsher bites with the scratch of stubble along his upper lip. He let the fact be that he liked the feeling of gripping long strawberry smelling hair, but also shorter, simpler smelling hair between his fingers. 

And he let the fact that he liked both girls and boys slide for something that identified with the little bubble in his head more. Therefore changing his list of descriptive words to ‘Ashton Irwin, Pansexual’, in his head, on the morning of his nineteenth birthday. 

(His soul mate could be whoever they wanted to be, for the record, as long as they were accepting. Not that Ashton really thought about the black cursive script covered up by Festival bands and Tour bracelets, that much anymore anyway.)

* * * 

After getting fired from his job at KFC for his ‘incessant and frankly plain annoying’ tapping of beats on the work counter, Ashton found employment at his local video rental store. It wasn’t the nicest of places to find himself Friday to Sunday from 5pm till 11pm, but it funded his habit of breaking either his drums themselves or at the very least his drumsticks every two weeks, so what choice did he have. 

By 5.05pm, he would be slumped in the small, black cracked leather stool at the counter of the store. It was made of wood and was about stomach height on him. It looked like it hadn’t been painted in a good 5 years, from the way the paint was peeling off in little blue curls, but it gave Ashton something to do when his best friend, Alex, wouldn’t reply to his texts or when there was no one in the store to offer his assistance to. He would pick at the paint most of the time, making a neat little pile on the work top which he would huff about when too excited children blew it away when they threw a stack of ‘sleepover movies’ on the surface. Behind him were the hundreds of shelves that housed all of the little plastic sleeves that never seemed to be in the right order, which contained the CD’s. The worst part of the job was having to locate the elusive disc for an impatient customer, to then put in the corresponding box. 

From his vantage point high on the stool, he was directly in front of the door- a safety precaution when eager teens tried to pick pocket the store- and whenever it opened the cold evening air blew directly towards him, ruffling his hair and colouring his cheeks with the chill. Video games stacked the wall just to his left, and the store curled round in an L-shape to his right. The lighting was dimmed slightly from the energy saving light bulbs in the lights overhead, and there was a spot of damp in the far corner of the store which still needed to be fixed. Windows which had long since been painted black ran along the front of the store, and the carpet was sticky underfoot where late night customers had spilt their energy drinks as they battled against exhaustion. There was always the smell of popcorn in the air, even though the bags of it and the confectionary lining the queue line were always sealed shut. 

Customers also noticed that whenever they went to pay for their items that there seemed to be the tinny sound of some rock music playing even though there were no speakers in the store. If you asked Ashton if that mysterious sound came from his phone with the headphones still plugged in whilst playing some obscene rock song, then he would ask you what on earth you were talking about. No, he would say, I haven’t been listening to my music to drown out the silence when I have been specifically told not to. He’d just blame the noise on the whirring sound of the ancient computer on the right side of the desk, situated next to the even older, now coated in what looked like dust from underuse, land line telephone. 

No matter how much Ashton loathed the job, he was there, on time, every Friday to Sunday with his headphones and IPod clutched secretly in his hand. Oh, and sometimes spare change he had swiped from the kitchen countertop to buy one of the sugary sounding bags of sweets designed for movie snacks at the checkout. 

* * * 

When the landline phone rang at 7 o’clock on a Friday that Ashton was working, to say that Ashton very nearly fell of his chair, and only didn’t because he managed to grip onto the countertop in time, would be 100% accurate. Fall Out Boy’s, ‘Sugar We’re Goin Down’ had come up on the shuffle of his playlist and he had had it blaring from his headphones when the shrill sound of the call made him jump out of his skin. He didn’t even know the phone was connected to a network, let alone was accessible and able to be called. Assuming whoever was calling had just dialled the wrong number and ended up calling the store, he warily picked up the phone and pressed it to his ear.

“Hello, this is ‘Waste-the-Night Videos’, how can I help?” his voice was slightly croaking from not saying much other than ‘Is that all?’ and ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’ since 5pm. Friday evenings were always relatively quite until about 9pm, as people had mostly already got their films before Ashton’s shift started. After 9pm was when the regulars normally came in asking for any new recommendations for the weekend. A pale skinned boy with an eyebrow piercing (Ashton always envied the bravery it must have taken to get that done), and a new hair colour every weak was normally one of them. 

“Oh good, you picked up!” came a female voice from down the phone. It was too chipper and loud for this late at night. Ashton blinked hard a few times and shook his head to try and wake himself up. From doing so his curls fell in his face and he pushed a hand through them to leave his face clear.

“What can I help you with?” his voice was still a bit scratchy. 

“Well you see-“ the woman stopped and there was a loud crash in the background. Then Ashton heard ‘No, Mali! Stop trying to steal the car keys! Just because you passed your test years ago doesn’t mean you can take the family car!’. The faint sound of ‘But my car is shit’ and then the cursing out of her language filtered down the phone line, Ashton tried not to giggle into the receiver at how familiar the situation sounded. Static filled the phone, until the sound cleared and the woman was back again.  
“Hi sorry, my daughter she- no, doesn’t matter, never mind. Where was I?” she left a pause to small for Ashton to fill with repeating his question. “Needed a film, yes! Okay right, well there is this film for college and I was wondering if you could hold it back for me.” 

Ashton furrowed his brow, wondering how popular some educational film for college had to be for the girl’s - Mali, he assumed- mum had to call ahead and reserve it. He made no comment, and balanced the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he wrote down the name of the film, conscious of the fact he was probably getting dust on the black material which would be hell to get off later. His mum would probably shout his ear of about it when he tried to hide it within the rest of (mostly his) black washing. The woman informed him that someone would be over to get it soon, that she was very grateful and sorry for any inconvenience caused. 

Once the woman had put the phone down, silence fell on the store again and Ashton returned his headphones to his ears. Preferring the ringing from the shredding guitar beats, than the ringing from the woman’s shrill voice directed into his ears. 

* * * 

Twenty minutes later a very attractive boy walked into the store. He was wearing a dark drop dead t-shirt with white writing, over ripped skinny jeans –and honestly how tightly they fitted the boys calves was only rivalled by how Ashton’s jeans fitted him- and battered black convers. He wore no jacket even with the biting chill outside that hit Ashton’s similarly bare arms when he walked into the store. His thick brown hair, half rested across his forehead, and it looked fluffy. It partially covered his eyebrows but did nothing to hide the glossiness of his deep brown eyes. They were framed by long, ebony eyelashes. The boy’s lips were slightly pink compared to his dark complexion. There was no dark hairs splattering his jaw, but there were dark marks of real tattoos covering his arms. 

The black clad boy was having a very heated conversation with someone over the phone as he shouldered the door to the store open. He leaned against one of the blacked out windows as he continued his conversation. “Mum, did you really have to call ahead? It’s one movie for a project!” he retorted. “It’s embarrassing that you think I can’t do anything for myself! I’m nineteen!!” he practically shouted the last line into the speaker, but he was then silent for a while. Even from the cash register Ashton could hear the sounds of the boy’s mum shouting back at him for being disrespectful.  
The boy made eye contact with Ashton (God did he have nice eyes, Ashton thought), and he rolled his eyes in the direction of the phone. Obviously done with the conversation and the way it was heading. Ashton suppressed a chuckle behind closed teeth at the rude behaviour directed at the brown haired boy’s mum. 

“Okay mum, yeah, fine, okay. I’ll get the god damn movie.” There was more shouting, which the boy simply cut off by ending the call. He smirked slightly to himself when he pressed the disconnect button. 

With a few strides- okay so the very, very attractive boy also had very long legs- he was standing in front of Ashton, studying his face slightly. His chocolate eyes followed the swoop of his nose, and the curve of his lips, the hue of his hair, before making eye contact. This all happened in two seconds, and Ashton barely had time to wipe his mouth of the sugar that had been coating the sherbet sweets he had been eating before the boy came. When his chocolate brown eyes met Ashton’s, the boy’s lips almost seemed to suck into his mouth. Like he had taken in a sharp intake of breath. 

“What colour even are your eyes?” the boy asked almost reverently. He sounded to be in complete awe of the simple pigment of Ashton’s irises. And Ashton’s eyes widened at the words that had tumbled from his lips.

His mind was spinning. Images of his black laden wrist the first time he saw it, swimming to the front of his mind. He sucked in a deep breath of his own. The mark on his wrist felt like it was burning. 

“Wait,” Ashton paused. His thoughts were reeling with pictures and conversations about soul mates. He had almost shouted the words, trying to speak over the shouting and screaming in his head. But all he managed to focus on was that he was expecting a girl called Mali to be collecting the DVD, and not a boy who also happened to be his soul mate. “You’re a boy? You’re meant to be a girl.” 

“What?” the boys face had fell. The glint in his eyes, gone. His stance sagged and his shoulders hunched. It didn’t click for Ashton what he had just said, that if this was his soul mate, like he assumed it was because his first words corresponded with those on his wrist, then those were the first words he had spoken to them, and they would inevitably be the words on the tanned boys skin. He didn’t realise that to the boy it sounded like rejection to the fact that he was his soul mate, not the product of Ashton’s jumbled mind. The toneless expression the boy had used was almost as harsh as the shouting he had been doing earlier. 

Ashton back tracked; misunderstanding the change is his body language for confusion. “Like, well your mum-“ he raised an eyebrow in question, and the boy only slightly nodded with a tight lipped smile. A smile that definitely didn’t reach his eyes, eyes which were glossy but not with happiness anymore. “-your mum, she called earlier. And well I thought, um Mali? Yeah, Mali was meant to be coming to get this.” He picked the disk he had found early up off the desk and showed it to the boy. 

Then the boy smiled. A full on, teeth bearing, tongue poking through, smile. It clicked to him that the words that Ashton had spoken had nothing to do with him being his soul mate. It had everything to do with Ashton being completely overwhelmed and just spewing out the first thing he could think of. The feeling of rejection the boy had felt his entire life quelled bit inside of him. His brown eyes crinkled and little crow’s feet appeared at the edges. “Can I see it?” he asked. 

“What?” 

“Your soul mate tattoo.” The boy chuckled at the end. There was an almost cocky smile at the end. Ashton’s knees felt week and he was glad that he was sitting down or he was certain he would be shaking on the spot. 

“Oh” was all Ashton could say as he twisted the bracelets on his wrist to loosen them, and then slid them up his arm. They revealed the ink marring his soft skin there. When he looked up, the boy had stretched the collar of his shirt down. The skin of his shoulder and chest were exposed. Ashton longed for the boy to just take his top off and reveal more of his no doubt toned stomach, than just stretch the collar of his shirt till the elastic gave way. It revealed a tattoo anyway, one which the boy had not chosen to get himself place just under the indent of his collarbone. It contrasted effortlessly against his dark skin. All thoughts of placing kisses to the skin vanish and Ashton honestly felt lightheaded.  
It read: ‘Wait, you’re a boy? You’re meant to be a girl.’

And it finally clicked for Ashton saw how bad it must have been to wake up with a tattoo that you thought were the lines of rejection about you being the wrong gender. He saw how the boy could have thought that Ashton had known earlier that he was his soul mate and still come out with the remark about him ‘not being the right gender’. He should have seen it in the way he deflated physically as if he had been waiting for the rejection his whole life. He had shrunk in on himself to become less vulnerable to whatever horrible words he expected his soul mate- soul mate for god sake! - would say to him. 

The boy then stuck his hand out towards Ashton’s tattooed one and shook it. His warm skin sent tingles across Ashton’s, it was smooth with a few callouses which he longed to know where they had come from. There was a tattoo on the boy’s right thumb, and it was in blocky writing compared to what was on Ashton’s left wrist. Even though Ashton’s hands were bigger, when their palms touched Ashton felt overwhelmed by a feeling a safety and something that reminded him of home. The feeling spread and it felt like something was encasing his heart. Normally when people say that it means that they feel trapped and suffocated, to Ashton it felt like he had been engulfed in something too fuzzy and warm to comprehend. 

“Hi, my names Calum,” The boy had a lovely voice. Ashton didn’t think he had mentioned that. It was definitely of the same drawl as Ashton’s, if not just slightly less strong. But there was a twang to the end that hinted at something else. The tone was low but it sometimes raised high at the end of sentences. It was rich and deep and slow, reminding Ashton of thick honey or dark treacle the colour of the boy’s eyes. “And it looks like I’m your soul mate.” 

Ashton smiled blindingly, almost like the sun with the way it lit up the room. “Hey Calum, I’m Ashton. It looks like you are, doesn’t it?” 

They didn’t let go off each-others hands, clasping on tightly and Ashton felt the warmth of Calum’s palm soaking through his and then through his entire body. As the boy, Calum, Ashton’s soul mate, laughed, the sound bounced off the walls. Reflecting the soothing twinkling sound back into the room, filling it with warmth and happiness. It was like the stars revealing their brilliance against a twilight background. Selective to who they showed themselves to, but once they had, the shinning beauty was almost too much to perceive. Ashton’s cheeks hurt from smiling, his dimples and white teeth evident the whole time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there should be one more chapter that will literally just be fluff. like the entire thing will be fluff. ha oh well, who can complain about cashton really?? anyway, that should be up some time next week probably
> 
> please leave comments and kudos if you like it?? means a lot, ty ty
> 
> (idek why there are the notes from the last chapter below this?? halp??)


	3. Sour Patch Kids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And only then would Ashton think that, yes this world is unpredictable, and completely unexpected, but when was that ever a bad thing when it came to boys with brown hair, tanned skin, and tattoos littering their skin, that go by the name of Calum Hood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooo, the ending has finally arrived !! ENJOY

After the boys had finally dropped each other’s hands, they had just stood rooted to the spot, glancing at each other anxiously. Biting their bottom lips as Calum fidgeted his feet and Ashton swung ever so slightly to the left and right on his stool. They waited for the other to make the first move. 

The only thing running through Ashton’s head was CalumCalumCalum and his eyes seemed to be swimming with zoomed in versions of Calum’s everything. The way his hair was just so fluffy that his hands twitched with the urge to run his long fingers through it, and how his arms were so tanned, but the black of the tattoos made them look even darker. Ashton wanted to trace them with his hands, light brushes of his fingertips over them, as words of explanation for why he got them, and their significance, fell from Calum’s plump lips. Then maybe he could press feather light kisses over the inked area and then maybe, maybe, Ashton could press his own lips to Calum’s, feeling the slight drags of air that fell from each of their mouths. And he wanted to lift Calum’s shirt up, see more of the dark skin he had revelled when showing Ashton his soul mate tattoo and then press kisses into the newly uncovered skin. Kisses and bruises that would show up so wonderfully on his skin, all around his soul mate tattoo, proving that the words were compete misleading- that there was someone who wanted him- and the purple blossoming on his skin would be proof of that. 

Ashton’s eyes didn’t dilate but he fidgeted more on his chair and his throat constricted. He coughed awkwardly, flitting his eyes down to his converse clad feet resting on the sticky floor- yes, he was tall enough that even on a stool his feet fell flat on the floor, his knees even jutted up a bit- before back up to Calum. He felt like he had been caught thinking about his and Calum’s limbs tangled together under white sheets. He hadn’t really, well now that he thought about it, the idea of them together, together-together, was a really dangerous thought to be having right now. Calum hadn’t moved, still standing directly in front of the counter with his hands now in the tight back pockets of his jeans. He had stopped fidgeting on the spot now though, and was looking at Ashton with a quirk to his lips and a glint in his eye. 

He coughed again. “Did you, um, like want to…” Ashton trailed off, reaching up to the back of his neck and scratching at the skin there. Calum only quirked his eyebrow and his smirk deepened. 

Taking in a deep breath, ignoring the cocky look on his soul mates face (because if he actually looked, he didn’t know how he would be able to stop himself from dissolving into a hot mush on the floor) “You could, like, stay here with me until my shifts over?” even thought Calum was smirking when Ashton stuttered out the line, his eyes softened slightly. Secretly, Calum found the stuttering and the fumbling quite endearing. 

“Sure” Calum replied chirpily. He could see Ashton was already a bit flushed in the face, and slightly (only slightly, Calum tried to reason with himself, it’s not like he had done much to Ashton really, even though the other boys fidgeting hands said otherwise) flustered. To turn on Calum’s notorious ‘I’m gonna make you really uncomfortable with my smoulder’ felt a bit unfair on the poor unsuspecting boy. He toned it down a bit, half-heartedly wiping the smirk off his face, but keeping the playful glint in his eyes. 

* * * 

Twenty minutes later, Calum had his own stool and was sitting on the employee side of the movie counter. There wasn’t much space, only enough room for Ashton to sit in front of the register facing Calum, and Calum to be sat on a stool to the left of him. When they faced each other, their knees brushed lightly. Thankfully Ashton didn’t own any skinny jeans ripped at the knee, because if he did he didn’t know if he could take the smooth brush of Calum’s exposed knee (it turns out Calum did own ripped skinnies and was wearing them) against his own for the remaining two hours of his shift. 

The bottom of Calum’s previous seat had been broken through- probably from someone standing on it when trying to turn the fire alarm off- and when an unsuspecting tanned boy had sat on it, it resulted in a good 5 minutes of hilarity. The wooden bottom was broken and it was only the cloth wrapped around the top, it gave the illusion that it was stronger than it was. The weight of a 6 foot something boy had obviously been too much for the fabric, and it ripped down the middle with a loud, yet satisfying tearing noise. The room erupted into giggles and full belly laugher as Calum got stuck in the chair and struggled around to remove it. 

Even after Calum had removed himself from the chair, Ashton continued to laugh, and there was a moment that Calum just took him in. He looked at how his hair fanned around his head, a dark honey colour, in little curls and ringlets. He looked at the angle of his nose, how it curved to a peak at the end, and the sharp angle of his jaw- absent of stubble like it would have been if he hadn’t inevitably shaved. He looked at the way his entire face scrunched up as he laughed, completely adorable, mouthing dropping open as he gasped for air. Revealing huge dimples, the lines of many days spent laughing and pulled together eyebrows. His eyes were closed, but Calum knew they would be twinkling with happiness.

Calum was going to pout at the way Ashton was still laughing, clutching at his stomach as replays of him trying to detach the chair from his jeans played over and over behind his eyes, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Couldn’t bring himself to fake-strop when Ashton’s laugh alone filled the store with sunlight. 

Once he had wiped the tears from his eyes, he had looked up at Calum. Still clutching at his stomach because ‘It hurt too much from laughing’, and with eyelashes painted darker from his salty tears, he frowned at the younger boy- even though right now he didn’t know he was younger then. During Ashton’s episode, Calum had grabbed the other chair from behind a stack of old Pokémon games that all looked like they had the same “MC” scribbled in the top left hand corner. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he wheezed out. The lilt of happiness and joy still in his voice, making Calum’s stomach feel warm and fuzzy. 

“You’re just kinda beautiful when you laugh” Calum shrugged when he said it, but there was no air of melancholy to what he had said. It showed in the fierce, almost protectiveness, that shone in his eyes. 

The emotion in Calum’s chocolate eyes, along with the words was what made Ashton blush and the feeling of heat run through his veins. “Thanks.” He said, dipping his head to the floor slightly as a blinding smile threatened to break across his face. 

“No problem,” he paused, considered tacking something else on, “soul mate”. At that Ashton did look up at Calum and the smile did cross his face. The white of his teeth wasn’t what caused the light that enveloped the room when he did so. Neither of the boys would ever tire from that phrase. And even though they had known each other for less than a day, it felt okay to realise that this, whether it was fated or not, was meant to last. 

Ashton mentally shook himself, eradicating bashful thoughts about how pretty Calum looked, and also how proud the brown haired boy had looked when he made Ashton laugh and smile. “So,” he said. “Tell me a bit about yourself.” 

It carried on like that for an hour. Gentle easy conversation between the two. Light laughter bouncing off the walls every now and then, followed by serious silences when one of the two delved into an entirely darker situation, as they got to know everything about one another. Calum had sworn he would ‘beat the shit’ out of the ‘stupid bloody KFC’ manager for dismissing Ashton for such a mundane thing as drumming his hand on the counter, and Ashton had brushed him off, saying it was nothing. Also adding on the end saying that if that ‘stupid bloody KFC’ manager hadn’t of fired him, they wouldn’t be in the situation they were in now. (Ashton secretly treasured the fire in Calum’s eyes when he told him the story, and how Calum was so angry only on his behalf. It had made his heart fluttered around helplessly- and rather pathetically- inside his chest.) The tanned boy had blushed when trying to apologise on behalf of his frantic mother and also explain the situation of madness of his sister, Mali, stealing the keys whilst she was on the phone. Ashton had simply smiled the whole time, waving a hand at the boys apologises. He did apologise himself however, as if he hadn’t been so illiterate when hearing a very attractive boy say the words on his wrist, then he wouldn’t have had to burden the boy with the tragic words on his collarbone. It hurt Ashton to even think about how much pain he would have gone through for the past 3 years to get to this point. 

* * * 

“Right, right, okay, seriously though,” Ashton huffed out in between fits of giggles. “Like, one-“he made the mistake of looking up at Calum again. He had stolen the pricing sticker gun and currently had an array of sporadically placed yellow, ‘ONLY £1!’ stickers stuck to the tanned skin of his face. The gun had been the source of hilarity to Calum for the past half an hour, and when he found the clunky black device with the roll of stickers inside, he had resorted to chasing Ashton around behind the counter. The squabble resulted in quite a few yellow stickers on the black material of his jeans, on his bum, and a tiny bruise on Calum’s nose when he all too enthusiastically tried to stick a sticker to his face. 

Still snickering and giggling both boys tried to calm down. Resulting in a few failed splutters when Calum removed the stickers from his face. (They left little red marks on his face from where they had pulled his skin and Ashton fought against the urge to kiss the little red splatters). They returned to normal, happiness dancing in their eyes, and blinding smiles on their faces as they looked at each other. Ashton’s hair had grown tousled in the tussle, and Calum’s cheekbones were slightly pink with excursion. 

Calum placed the gun back down on the side of the desk next to Ashton’s, and when he did, he almost squealed. Stacked just next to the desks were a few crates full of stock- stock that Ashton was meant to put out, but he had a decent excuse as to why he didn’t. Ashton had cut open the top of one of the boxes with a knife earlier (he was glad they hadn’t stood on said knife when running around with the sticker gun earlier) and the contents was on view. Brightly coloured wrappers of sweets could be seen inside, packets of Harribos and chocolate buttons and what was the source of Calum’s happiness. Sour patch kids. 

He turned to Ashton with a adorable pout on his face, eyes just begging for the sweets. Calum must have known that he wasn’t meant to take the fresh stock, but it didn’t stop his bottom lip jutting out in a silent plead. “Fine, toss me two packets” Ashton grumbled, he was anything but unhappy though, as he was the one who had made the happy smile appear on the tanned boys face. He reached in the box and chucked Ashton two of the packets, when Ashton caught them with ease, he opened one of them. He peered into the packet, picked out a red sweet and popped it on his tongue, letting the sugar and sherbet around it dissolve on his tongue. He handed the packet to Calum, who only took a handful and then left the packet on the countertop. 

“Why’d you need two?” he asked, eyeing the other packet of sweets that Ashton had placed on the top of a DVD on the counter. 

“Well,” Ashton looked down and felt his cheekbones colouring. “I thought that maybe you’d want some later?” he hoped that that was enough for Calum and that he wouldn’t let him spell out what he was asking. Ashton wasn’t in luck, apparently. 

“Later?” Calum’s eyebrows furrowed and he looked so quizzical but not annoyed with the vague statement or Ashton’s muttering. 

“I thought maybe you’d um…, like…, I don’t know it’s stupid” 

“No, c’mon tell me” Calum pleaded. Even though he hadn’t looked up from staring down at his hands, Ashton knew that Calum would be pouting. 

Ashton rambled out all at once. “I was wondering, if, like, you wanted to come back to mine, like as in my flat, to um, to watch the film that you came here to get.” He looked up at the end of the sentence just quick enough to catch the beginning of Calum’s smirk. 

“Sure.” He replied, so matter of factly, without hesitation but oozing with confidence, that Ashton wanted to scream. He only blushed, thinking of the boy curled up under blankets and with a hot drink clasped between his tattooed fingers, on Ashton’s sofa. Then the brown haired boy tossed the final one of his sweets in the air above his mouth, and let it fall. It landed perfectly on his tongue and he smiled in satisfaction as he ate it. 

Ashton gave a little smile. “I wanna try that.” There was a slight whine to his voice, almost as if he didn’t like the younger boy showing off. He grabbed for the sweets and picked one out it, holding it in his hands before tossing it into the air. It went directly above his head, and Ashton thought it was going well until the sweet began to fall again and it landed above his upper lip and below his nose. It bounced, but then successfully landed in his mouth. He made an appreciative noise as the sugar and sour tingled across his taste buds. Calum was just looking at him with his lips pulled into a smile; his eyes were soft which what could only be described as fondness. He reached for another sweet and repeated the action, trying not to let the sugar decorate his face like the time before. He failed again and it landed just above the left corner of his lips and then fell into his lap. The boy let out a noise of annoyance, took the sweet from his lap, and ate it anyway. 

Calum no longer had a soft look in his eyes, whatever it was that was in them, was foreign, but all Ashton was focusing on was the fact that Calum seemed to be more fixated on his lips. The tanned boy coughed, “You’ve got, uh, sugar, like here” he said, motioning to the places splattered with sugar in relation to his own lips.   
“Oh” and then Calum wasn’t looking at his lips, he was following the trail of Ashton’s tongue as it circled his lips in search of the white substance. Licking off the sugar the best he could, Ashton hoped that it was all gone. He didn’t think of the way Calum swallowed awkwardly around the lump in his throat as he watched the red tip of his tongue run across his lips, because if he did then his cheeks would have flushed a dark, dark red.

“There’s still some, like,” his voice sound strained, but he cut himself off, reaching forward with what he would forever deny as shaking fingertips to brush the sugar from the curly haired boys upper lip. It stuck to his forefinger, when he pulled away. “here.” He finished. He looked at his finger with the white sticky grains on it, flicking his gaze up to a very, very flustered Ashton, and sucked in a deep breath. Steeling his emotions and shutting up his brain which was screaming at him not to complete his next action, at the same time as screaming at him to just do it, he brought the sugar dusted finger up to his own mouth and licked the sugar off. His tongue poked out to sweep the sugar of it, and the eye contact he retained with Ashton allowed him to see the way his lips parted ever so slightly. Breath rushed out of both of their mouths, and Ashton really, really, had to force himself to not think about the way Calum’s slick tongue had so easily flicked out of his mouth. The thought of it working wonders on Ashton’s skin, made his stomach warm. 

“Got it” Calum breathed out, his own cheeks flushed. 

Ashton coughed to cover up his splutter. Splutter. It was 100% a splutter and not something between a whimper and a moan at how Calum was looking at him with the most innocent eyes beneath his mass of fluffy brown hair. The whirring of the computer next to them filled the room. It was suffocating in the store, and not from awkwardness but with what could undeniably be called tension. 

“Um,” to break eye contact he looked down at his phone to check the time. “My shift is over, so we can go now.” His voice was thick and his tongue dragged along the roof of his mouth like sandpaper. 

Calum made a noise a confirmation, but remained looking at Ashton as he obviously didn’t know how to lock up the place. As quickly as he could manage, Ashton darted around the store, pulling down the shutters of the windows, and double locking the front door. Once he had checked all the doors but the back one were closed, he returned back to behind the counter. Calum remained in his chair, watching Ashton the whole time. How the muscles of his back rippled when he twisted his hands to twist the keys in their locks, and how he had seen a sliver of golden skin above his waist band, as the older boy had reached up to grab the top of the shutter and pulled it down to the floor. Neither of them spoke, but the atmosphere of the shop spoke volumes, Calum’s skin prickled with what he would deny was anticipation. Once behind the counter again, Ashton shut down the noisy computer, and ejected the money tray of the cash register. His long fingers plucked out the notes from the day’s rentals, before getting down on his hands and knees on the floor and searching under the counter, on the floor, for something. 

This is what caused Calum to nearly see stars, when the boy sat back on his ankles with a safe box in his hands, pushing the money inside it. The space was cramped anyway, just big enough for the two boys to sit on chairs with the knees brushing. But now when Ashton had got on his hands and knees to look sideways under the counter for the safe box, he may as well have been in between Calum’s legs. So when he sat up, sitting with his bum on his calves, his eyes gazing up into Calum’s innocently, Calum couldn’t help but let out a huff of air. From this angle, if Ashton leaned forward all of ten centre metres his breath would fan over Calum’s crotch. If he leaned up the slightest on his knees, he could easily pull down the zipper of his tight black jeans, relieving some of the pressure that Calum could feel building there. The hazel eyed boys eyelashes fluttered against the dusty rose colour of his cheeks, and his lips were slightly parted and red. Calum barely contained the groan that threatened to break through as he thought about the boys lips stretched around him, and how they would looked slicked with saliva. 

Ashton only seamed to catch on to how compromising the position was when Calum’s legs parted ever so slightly. He turned a deep red, the colour flushing not only across his cheeks, but down his neck as well. Calum longed to see if the colour spread across the boys chest as well, but that train of thought, coupled with the ones of him tugging at the boys long, honey coloured hair to force him to take him deeper, didn’t help the situation in the slightest. The metallic sound of the lid of the safety box closing pierced through Calum’s thoughts. It startled him into seeing the beet red colour of his soul mate’s face as the boy stood up. He made sure to rock backwards, instead of forwards when he got up from the floor, meaning when he was standing he was slightly further away from Calum and wasn’t between his thighs. Calum let out another puff of air, trying to focus on anything but the feeling of want in his lower stomach and that Ashton’s lips were parted even more now, revealing the edges of his straight, white teeth. 

“Cal, are you okay?” 

Calum could say that it was the nickname that caused his next actions. How the familiarity the name hinted at was the cause of it. He could say that it was the way Ashton’s eyes were darker than the hazel they had been when the tattooed boy walked into the shop. He could say it was the fact that Ashton’s hair was still not quite de-ruffled after the episode with the sticker gun. He could say it was the way that Ashton sounded winded almost, when he asked. He could have said those things, if, when he had pressed his lips to Ashton’s, his mind hadn’t gone blank. 

He had been sitting on the same stool as before, Ashton having just stood up was leaning on the countertop. The small of his back was pressed lightly against the side, and both of his palms were facing away from him on the surface. He looked the height of at ease, but anyone could see the wire of his self-control wearing thin. When the question slipped out, Calum had processed it for a second or two, before he practically fell out of his chair. Making his way to Ashton, he wrapped his arms around the boys neck tightly, resting his forehead against his- breathing intermingling hot in front of them- not kissing. He positioned his leg so one was in between Ashton’s (he could even feel the older boy pressing stiff against the top of his thigh) and the other was on the side on his right leg, bracketing the boy against the counter. Ashton whined and his lips trembled, Calum almost felt the movement against his own lips, the space between their mouths vibrating with the heat of their breath and the movement of Ashton’s quivering bottom lip. Ashton gripped Calum’s hips with his large hands, holding tight, but not pushing him away. 

Then when Calum advanced forwards, catching Ashton’s lips in a kiss, the boy was glad for the counter behind him, for if it wasn’t there, his weak knees would have surely given way. The tanned boy kissed with varying pressure, every now and then parting his own lips to swipe his tongue along the seal of Ashton’s, and when Ashton opened his mouth in an invitation, Calum only smirked and kissed lightly again. He prided himself in the ability to make the small little noises fall from Ashton’s mouth when he pressed ever so lightly against the older boy with his thigh. Ashton’s lips were tingling, the blood rushing to them, he was feeling light headed. His wrist was to pulsing too, but Ashton’s head was all over the place right now, and he only focus on quelling the feeling of fireworks in his stomach to a more manageable inferno. 

Calum was the one to break away first, but he caught Ashton’s raw bitten, bottom lip between his teeth. Tugging lightly and ever so slightly on it, before letting it fall back. Ashton let out an incoherent moan at that, sucking his bottom lip back into his mouth afterwards, savouring the sweet taste in his mouth from Calum’s tongue, while he breathed heavily through his nose. 

“’m just peachy” Calum smirked, before diving down to kiss Ashton again before the older boy even had a chance to catch his breath.

* * * 

When the boys had left the shop, the lights being turned off and the back door locked, they had their hands interlaced. In a way that showed companionship, but covertly showed that they couldn’t even keep their hands off each other before they reached Ashton’s apartment. The twinkle of promises shone in their eyes, and the feeling of want also mixed with something more rich and deep ran through their veins. It was love, but hey, what did two boys know about love at this age anyway. They had time for that, a forever and a day for deciphering the meaning of the thick mixture that would forever pump through their veins now that they had found each other. When they reach Ashton’s flat, and tumbled under the white sheets in a tangle of bodies, they didn’t think about how they had forgotten something.

Sitting on the peeling blue countertop, back at ‘Waste-The-Night Videos’, was a packet of sour patch kids, resting on the cover of DVD. When Ashton went back the next week to start his shift, he would see the video and the sweets stored on a shelf which held all of the employees items. And only then would Ashton think that, yes this world is unpredictable, and completely unexpected, but when was that ever a bad thing when it came to boys with brown hair, tanned skin, and tattoos littering their skin, that go by the name of Calum Hood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this little fic, and also liked the ending. this is the first boyxboy fic, as I normally write 'you+them' type things.
> 
> please let me know what you think?! THANK YOU!!


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